Greetings. We want to update you on the current status of Inksie along with what we’ve done over the last few months. But, first: a little history.

The Inksie brand began as a side project of a larger company that specializes in online apparel sales. The company aimed to branch out and develop its own line of proprietary apparel. The idea was to expand the business in a fun, unique way while capturing apparel enthusiasts’ and designers’ interest with a quality brand. The success of several online t-shirt retailers helped form the vision for a community-driven company.

This article was created by writer and designer Xavier Bertels, illustration by Miet Claes. Please note, this entry is an opinion piece and may not represent the beliefs of other Inksie staff members. If you have any insight, please leave a comment.

Have you ever used a touch screen device to browse the web? Chances are, you have. iPhones and iPads were the scouts of the army of touch-enabled devices – set out to conquer worlds – and recent iPad sales statistics show that touch is here to stay.

Meanwhile, the keyboard and the mouse will probably stick around for another decade. This has some serious implications for web designers, as they need to come up with designs that work on a myriad of devices.

Responsive web design is a principle that we can use to overcome the problems that varying screen resolutions bring along. But, there is one design conception not all web designers know about: feedback.

This article and its illustrations were created by writer and designer Evan Stremke. Please note, this entry is an opinion piece and may not represent the beliefs of other Inksie staff members. If you have any insight, please leave a comment.

What would we call ourselves? Designers? Would we maybe take it a step further perhaps? Maybe we’re Creative Thinkers, or even Creative Problem Solvers? How about Visionaries? It’s probably safe to assume that it doesn’t say Professional Crybabies anywhere on our business cards, is this correct?

So why is it that so many of us spent the majority of the past week crying out over the new Gap logo, allotting time to work on creating alternative designs rather than the work we get paid to do, or work that could actually be of service to someone else? Did we honestly think that contributing our own concepts to various blogs and websites, creating—and communicating with—a fake Twitter account for the new logo (which is almost always stupid by the way), and venting about it on our blogs would bring about serious action on Gap’s part?

What’s that? Oh, Gap has reverted to their previous logo? Congratulations, we still wasted our time because we don’t shop at Gap based on the quality of the logo. We shop at Gap because of the clothing. We shop at Gap because there’s usually a gigantic photo of John Krasinski wearing a scarf plastered on the storefront window, not because of the typography on—or the lack of shapes on—the bag.

I was particularly delighted last week to happen upon an article published by John Rousseau on AIGA Seattle’s site entitled Infosthetics. It centers on the infographics fad that has expanded dramatically in recent years, and highlights some of its more bothersome characteristics.

We can empathize with Mr. Rousseau as infographics have remained a vexatious subject for The Journal staff. The article pinpoints what makes them so very irksome; they typically provide an unclear spatial representation of data and continually tip the form and function scale to an unnecessary degree, leaning fully upon the form, of course.

To put it simply, modern infographics are too confusing. One cannot help but feel as if they are piecing together a puzzle or solving a logical word problem. To put it crudely: they’re a visual face smash.

Inksie’s online shop launched on Monday.

The shop, envisioned as a core part of the brand, is the fruit of a year-long effort. We currently have three custom designed t-shirts, two prints and a set of Scout Books notebooks available for purchase. We aim to increase the number of products and expand our product base as we evolve. Sign up for the newsletter to receive the latest news on Inksie releases.

The Inksie Shop and Journal of Design & Culture are currently in beta. Our team is tirelessly testing the site for glitches and bugs, but that doesn’t mean we’ll catch everything. If you see something that needs addressing, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

The Inksie Art Team is pleased to showcase Brent Couchman’s Print & Production Poster, now available in the Inksie Shop.

We commissioned Mr. Couchman to create a design based on one of the four Inksie Principles:

Inksie engages artists and the public alike in the medium of print. We believe that it is a powerful, communicative platform. We exercise the medium’s strengths through distributing original works of printed art and design to the public.

The print is a three-color serigraph on 18″ × 24″, 80-pound cover. Mr. Couchman chose French Paper’s luscious Hot Fudge from their Pop Tone line. It comes in a limited edition of 100.